Astore managers job is to keep total wagesto no morethan 30 percent of sales and to maintain the fuel bill and the supply bill at about 9 percent of sales each. Managers can also directly affect sales by ensur-ing courteous customer service and by ensuring that the workis done properly. Whatsuggestions would you maketo Jennifer and her father for an incentive plan for store managers or front counter clerks? The question of whether to pay Carter Cleaning Centre employees an hourly wage or an incentive of some kind has always intrigued Jack Carter.

His basic policy has been to pay employees an hourly wage,except that his managersdoreceive an end-of-year bonus depending, as Jack puts it, on whether their stores do well or not that year.

However, heis considering using an incentive plan in one store. Jack knows that a presser should press approximately 25 tops (jackets, dresses, and blouses)

per hour. Most of his pressers do not attain this ideal stan-dard, though. In one instance, a presser named Walt was paid $14.50 per hour, and Jack noticed that regardless of the amount of work he had to do, Walt always ended up going home at 3 p.m., so he earned about $510 at the end of the week. If it was a holiday week, for instance, and there were a lot of clothes to press, he might aver-age 22to 23tops per hour (someone else did pants